24 months of conflict have devastated Gaza.
Israel’s aerial assaults and military incursion have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians according to the Hamas-run health ministry, nearly the entire population has been displaced, and the UN says the majority of residences have been damaged or destroyed.
The offensive came in response to Hamas's unprecedented cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which approximately 1,200 individuals were slain and 251 others were captured.
Israeli authorities claim it is trying to destroy the armed and administrative capacities of the Islamist group, which is dedicated to Israel's destruction and has been in control of Gaza since 2007.
A ceasefire proposal has been proposed by American President Donald Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that would end the fighting immediately. The group has consented to free all remaining hostages - living and deceased - and to hand over control of Gaza to independent Palestinian experts, but it has refused to agree to disarmament or to giving up any future political role in Gaza’s leadership.
Gaza is only 41km (25 miles) long and 10km wide - about a quarter of the size of London - bordered on three sides by sealed frontiers with Egypt and Israel and by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, where a naval blockade is enforced by Israel. It is inhabited by more than 2 million people.
More than 90% of homes are believed to be destroyed or damaged; the medical, water, and sanitation infrastructure have collapsed; and UN-backed experts say there is starvation in Gaza City.
A UN investigative commission says Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza - even though Israeli officials have dismissed the commission’s report, describing it as "inaccurate and misleading".
This visual guide shows how Gaza has become in large parts unlivable.
Israel's campaign initially focused on northern Gaza - where it claimed Hamas fighters were hiding among the civilian population. Hamas denied this.
The town in the north of Beit Hanoun, a mere 2km from the border, was one of the first areas hit by airstrikes. It experienced heavy damage.
Ongoing Israeli airstrikes targeted Gaza City and additional cities in the north and instructed residents to relocate southward of the Wadi Gaza river before it launched its ground invasion at the conclusion of October 2023.
But Israel was also launching aerial bombardments on the southern cities which hundreds of thousands of Gazans from the north were fleeing towards. By the close of November, parts of the south of the territory lay in ruins, as did much of the north.
Israeli forces escalated its bombing of the southern and central regions at the beginning of December, before launching a ground offensive on Khan Younis, and by January 2024 over 50% of structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed.
By the time a truce was announced in January 2025 an approximately 60% of buildings across the Gaza Strip had been damaged, with Gaza City experiencing the most severe damage. More than 46,000 Palestinians had been killed, as per the Gaza health authority.
And the devastation has continued since the truce was terminated by Israel in the month of March - including in Rafah in the south. The UN calculates more than 90% of the residential buildings in Gaza have been affected during the war.
During the conflict, the militant group - which is designated as a terror group by Israel, the UK and many other countries - and additional factions affiliated with it have been involved in intense battles against Israeli forces on the ground. They have also launched numerous projectiles into Israel, especially in the first months of the war.
But in Gaza, whole neighborhoods have been completely demolished, medical facilities and places of worship have been destroyed and farmland where greenhouses previously existed have been turned into debris and dust by heavy vehicles and tanks used for demolitions by Israeli troops.
Israeli authorities state militants utilize non-military structures such as hospitals for military purposes - but Hamas denies that.
Before the war, most of Gaza's 2.1 million people lived in its primary urban centers - Khan Younis and Rafah in the south, Deir al-Balah city, in the centre, and Gaza City.
Within 10 days of 7 October 2023, Israel’s offensive had forced nearly half to leave their homes, as per the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
And by the time the truce was implemented 15 months later, an estimated 1.9m people had been forcibly relocated - they remain unable to return home.
Families have moved repeatedly as Israeli forces shifted the emphasis of their campaign, first instructing people in the north to move south of the Wadi Gaza waterway, which divides Gaza approximately in two, and subsequently directing people to evacuate a series of "evacuation zones" in the south.
Leaflet drops by the Israeli military warned people to evacuate before operations in the area. However, not all Israeli strikes are preceded by alerts.
Since Israel ended the ceasefire, it has designated an increasing number of regions of Gaza as no-go zones - where limitations are enforced - or imposing evacuation directives, meaning residents have been instructed to evacuate entirely.
Initially the orders to evacuate covered two areas - in the North Gaza and Khan Younis governorates - with a “no-go” area in place along the entire frontier.
Aid agencies have to co-ordinate with the Israeli government to work within the "no-go" areas.
Israel had also blocked any humanitarian aid from entering the territory at the beginning of March - accusing Hamas of commandeering it. Limited aid is now permitted to enter, although relief groups still say it is insufficient.
By the start of April every bakery supported by the UN in Gaza had been closed, most fresh vegetables were in extremely short supply and medical facilities were rationing medications and antibiotics.
The humanitarian organization ActionAid warned that a "renewed period of hunger and dehydration" loomed.
Israel’s defence minister declared on April 16 that Israel would establish protected areas in Gaza to provide a “buffer” to safeguard Israeli towns following the conclusion of hostilities - the group has demanded that Israeli troops must pull out from Gaza under any permanent ceasefire.
At the time almost 70% of Gaza was affected by limitations imposed by Israel - including most of the North Gaza and Gaza City governorates in the north and the entire Rafah governorate in the south, as reported by the UN.
And in the month of May, Israel initiated a land operation named Operation Gideon's Chariots, which Netanyahu said would seek to obtain the freedom of the 48 remaining hostages - 20 of which are believed to be living - and "complete the defeat" of the militant organization.
Since then the areas covered by evacuation directives and limitations have been expanded to include 82% of Gaza, as per the UN.
The first phase of the campaign focused on objectives within northern Gaza, Khan Younis, and Rafah but in August Israel revealed intentions to capture and occupy all of Gaza City itself - which it has referred to as the “last stronghold” of Hamas.
The city had been the most crowded part of the territory before the war, with 775,000 people living there.
Those who remained there were instructed to relocate south to al-Mawasi in the south west of the Strip which Israel has designated as a “humanitarian area” - despite the fact that it has continued to carry out lethal attacks there and which the UN said was already overpopulated and unsafe.
Hundreds of thousands of residents have so far fled the city of Gaza, where a famine was confirmed in August 2025 by a UN-backed body.
But many more thousands continue to stay in dire humanitarian conditions, with medical and vital services failing.
In September 2025, multiple nations, {including
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